


if the words unspoken get stuck in your throat

by Peculiarwizard



Series: trans umbrella academy headcanons [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Genderfluid Character, Nonbinary Character, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-06 02:53:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17931452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peculiarwizard/pseuds/Peculiarwizard
Summary: Five and Klaus have a Bonding Moment. Set somewhere near the beginning on the series.





	if the words unspoken get stuck in your throat

**Author's Note:**

> according to robert sheehan, klaus is canonically nonbinary. and i feel nb five in my soul. so i got real emo over sibling bonding and had to write this, at 7am with no sleep. just woke up at noon and decided to post it. title from goody two shoes by adam ant, i've had all the songs from this show stuck in my head.
> 
> i'll probably end up writing more nb five, and possibly more about klaus.

“So how come you never chose a name? After all those years? I know you never liked the one mom picked out but you had some time to find one of your own, why didn’t you?” Your brother, annoying as ever, has been pestering you with questions ever since you got here. Which might be fine if they were actually important questions, like about how the world is fucking ending, but instead he’s obsessing over small things like _names_.

“I have a name. It’s Five,” You answer with a sigh, hoping he'll back off.

“But that’s just a number! Don’t you want to be more than whatever dad thought of us?” So apparently he’s not gonna give this up easily. He’s sitting on the kitchen table giving you some sad puppy dog look.

“I like this name. Nothing else fit,” You don’t want to have this conversation but it might as well happen, just to get him off your ass. You take a long sip of your shitty coffee before continuing. “When Mom tried to give me a name it just didn’t feel right. Felt like too much expectations. Like someone was gonna hear that name and think they know what I’m gonna be like. With Five, no one knows what to expect. It’s… Neutral.”

What you don’t say is it felt too masculine. You also don’t tell him how much time you spent looking for names. There was a long time when you did want something to fit—you even looked at some feminine names, you thought about naming yourself Delores, it almost felt right, but it felt more right for her—but no matter how many dumb baby name books you found in the Library, nothing felt as natural as Five.

He nods vaguely, fiddling with his skirt. You weren’t joking earlier when you said it was nice, it really is a pretty skirt. Looks a lot better on him than the old uniform you could tell he never liked. He looks… happier now—with his skirt, smudged eyeliner, traces of glitter on his face—than the scared kid he was when you left. He used to only dress like this and do his makeup when dad wasn’t around. Maybe it’s because your old man finally kicked it, or maybe the newfound comfort in his own skin is just due to Klaus growing up.

Sometimes it bothers you that you didn’t get to see your siblings grow up, that you had to grow up on your own, but that’s a train of thought you really don’t have time for now.

“Sometimes,” he speaks up again after a minute of fidgeting, “I like being _neutral_. It can be really boring trying to be what people expect from you.” Without saying it outright he knows what you meant, and you understand him too.

Except him and his big mouth can’t leave things unsaid.

“Like, gender is probably fake anyways. Who the fuck cares about any kind of binary? I don’t think I can be described as male or female. I’m just. Neither. Maybe both? Depends on my mood.”

“Yeah, you’ve always been a strange creature,” you almost leave it at that but he’s still got that soft, kinda sad, look in his eyes so you add, reassuringly, “Wouldn’t change you for the world though. You’re _my_ weird sibling.”

He smiles at that and puts his hands over his heart with dramatic flair. “How sweet. You’re my weird sibling too, Five.”

“It’s not something I think about a lot but… I can relate—all the gender is fake stuff. Stuff like that stops mattering when you’re the last person on earth. Even before, and even when I was working with the Commission, it still didn’t matter to me.”

“Do you want me to like, use different pronouns for you? or call you something other than brother? Something more neutral maybe?”

“I really don’t care what you call me. I have bigger problems right now. But maybe after we save the world I’ll give it some thought.” That’s the most you’ve ever said about your gender to anyone but Delores and you really don’t wanna say anything else or even think about this right now. “Well. Good Talk. Now if you don’t mind, I need to go figure out a way to save us all.”


End file.
